Thursday

Myself and some friends had a great time enjoying some remote parts of Eastern Oregon for the past week. This story is all about Thursday though.


It started at 6:30 am, the three of us rolling out of the tents into 15 degree air in the bottom of DeGarmo canyon in the Hart Mountain Wilderness. Our plan was simple - to gain a higher campsite atop the plateau of a mountain that would provide relative shelter and quick access to the true summit, which came with spectacular overlooks off sheer cliffs into the Western valley beyond. We looked at the topo maps and determined the easiest and most scenic route we had as an option was to ascend from 6000 feet, up over the top of a 7500 foot ridge, back down through a 6800 foot canyon and then up to the base of the summit plateau at 8000 feet to camp, crossing over 8 miles or so in round-about fashion. We had all day so taking a shorter route wasn’t as appealing.

All was peaceful in the canyon camp but we did take note of some pretty fast moving clouds over the partially obscured summit and heard the wind in the treetops. The forecast was for good weather, a high building in for two days, no chance of snow. We knew we were in for some wind but the Trango 2 (2-man Mountain Hardwear 4-season tent) was always up to the challenge and I figured I'd just bury my one man tent far into the snow. Worst case, we could camp in the second canyon crossing below the summit plateau. We left camp with the heavy packs before 7:30.

We started up the canyon which swept around to the North and then East, steep walls on both sides. At some point we decided to ascend the North wall of the canyon directly, but that first attempt turned out to be the wrong point. Too steep and too much avalanche threat. Stuck below a headwall at 7000 feet we had to traverse the 40-degree slope for almost half a mile before it opened up above us and allowed for a continuation of the route to the ridge top, which we ascended. Weather had been pretty good thus far with only intermittent breeze and temps in the teens. Upon reaching the ridge, however, we were met with gusts to 50mph out of the South. No big deal I thought, because our intended camp on the opposite side of the canyon below us was positioned against a North-facing wall, shielding us from the South winds.

We struggled South into the next canyon, descending about 700 feet and stopped for lunch in an isolated grove of shrubby Mahogany. Quite to our surprise, it was still quite windy in the canyon. We made lunch a brief and concentrated effort between gales of spindrifting snow.

Still intent on reaching some sort of shelter up against the high wall beneath the plateau, we proceeded into the face of the gusts up 25-degree snow slopes and rock. The area had seen so much wind that most of the snowfall had accumulated in drifts, leaving large areas of terrain barren and exposed.

An hour or two later, 11:30am, we reached the base of the rock wall. To our dismay, the huge wall provided absolutely no shelter from the wind, which swirled around from all sides and was rapidly intensifying. Looking up at the wall, we could see huge waves of spindrift moving overhead before crashing down upon us with thundering force. Not a minute went by where we didn't have to drop everything and brace for impact.

I selected a location nearest the wall and dug into the snow several feet to get a tent pad for the Trango amidst the swirling winds. We had to carve into the snow because the surrounding terrain was too steep to pitch the tent otherwise. We would struggle for almost 45 minutes to erect the 4-season beast of a tent and planned to secure it with our snowshoe poles and a couple makeshift anchors. With two people holding the tent down, I tried repeatedly to bury any kind of anchor I could find into the loosest, driest, most granular snow I'd ever encountered. This was the type of snow you could stomp on for several minutes and never pack it at all. Making matters much worse, was the fact that the snow cover over much of the pad was only a couple feet deep. Too deep to try to bury regular tent stakes into the frozen ground below but too shallow to bury almost any anchors all the way down. Additionally, the pad just wasn't really large enough for the whole tent. A major site selection error had resulted in a very insecure pitch in deteriorating conditions.

The three of us huddled inside the 2-person tent and evaluated our options. It was only 12:30 so we could head back to the canyon we had just crossed and hope for better snow conditions or we could re-pitch the tent on a different site up here. We opted to break down our best efforts with the tent and move back an hour into the canyon below, hoping for deeper and more stable snow. Luckily, we maintained possession of the tent and all our gear in the blizzard conditions. I say blizzard, even though no snow was actually falling from the clouds at any point. Just then, the cloud layer that had been just above us was upon us, further reducing any brief moments of visibility. It is quite a moving experience to be in a frozen world two days onto an isolated mountain top with almost no visibility in a sea of white with crashing winds surrounding you.

We made it back into the canyon at 2pm only to find the winds were much worse than they had been passing through the first time. The clouds had lifted a little at that point, not that it mattered. We got to work scouting a tent site and did find some deeper snow for the anchors. I dug for half an hour in abominable conditions. We could look up and actually see whirlwinds of snow hundreds of feet high entering the canyon and shooting strait through our position. Some gusts were approaching 60 or 70mph. Everything not accounted for was buried within minutes or blown away by the next gust.

At about 3pm we finally had the Trango erected a second time and very well fortified. The type of conditions this tent can endure are hard to overstate, and it was up to the challenge here. Unfortunately, my solo-tent was not up to the challenge. I had intended to bury it pretty far in a wind-hole dug from the snow banks. The problem was, it would have been buried in minutes with spindrifted snow and caused a suffocation hazard if the hole had been deep enough to shelter it from collapsing completely. Digging any sort of hole for refuge from the storm could have resulted in similar risk, I reasoned, and would have been of considerable effort given the conditions.

We again sat in the Trango and evaluated the situation, this time with a joint to alleviate built up stresses. We figured we would probably have to sardine ourselves in the Trango for a sleepless night if this continued. My long time friend, Frank, had a different idea, however, that I had briefly contemplated as well. We could descend directly from the canyon we were in presently into the forested canyon we had began the day in. The canyon we were in was too steep to camp on and maybe too steep to descend without more time and equipment, but I hopped back out of the tent and found a vantage point to better evaluate it, ten minutes away, while the others stayed inside.

I returned around 4pm, an hour and a half from total darkness, with news that I believed we could safely descend this canyon, adjoining with our earlier route far below if we hurried and had the energy to break down our hard earned shelter once more. It was going to be steep, about a 1/2 a mile and 1000 vertical feet to refuge in the trees below. We opted to try this option over spending an unfortunately intimate and sleepless 14 hours in the Trango.

The winds were as bad as ever as we began our descent through a narrow gap which opened into a steep-walled, heavily terraced canyon. Willow brush and various pitfalls kept us traversing the sides most of the way, compounding the already steep angle of descent. We lost almost all light by the time we were nearing the base of the canyon and accidentally 'cliffed' ourselves out on a ledge. We then proceeded back a few minutes and hopped down through a series of rocky steps, navigating around the sheer drop. We made it! Back into the forested canyon at last!

It was dark but we found our earlier route and actually made it up canyon to the very campsite we had started the 12-hour day in! We could hear the howls and crashes of the winds on the cliffs far above, recounting just exactly how ridiculous the day's adventure had been. A combination a bad luck with weather and snow complicated by poor site selection under adverse conditions. But we made it and have some good stories to tell at least. We never made another attempt at the summit but we'll be back again some other Winter. Taking good pictures was the last thing on my mind most of the day but I did take this snap of Frank and Nate ascending out of the canyon to start the day.


Image - Frank (left) and Nate at about 7400 feet in DeGarmo Canyon just as we all collectively stopped to grab our sunglasses.

Times like these will stay with you forever. I'm glad everyone was alright, and injury under these conditions could have terrible consequences. I know what it's like not taking pictures under these conditions.

David M. Cobb

Ha! Great story, Marc! It's good to hear that you're out there living life.

Thanks for sharing the story Marc! Glad to hear you guys came down. I can only imagine the possible turns the story could have taken had you guys "braved" it out higher up.

In hindsight, I would have stayed up there. Being out in winds and snow is nothing new, as it usually occurs on a few trips each Winter. The combination of circumstances in this case was quite unique, however. Also complicating things was the incorrect decision that reaching the bottom of the first canyon would be any more pleasant. If I'd have done the whole thing over again I'd have seached around for a better spot up high instead of descending at all. It's just one of those things where you take what you thought to be the easier option and compound the problem.

Mark,
Sounds like a pretty scary experience. It sounds like your experience really helped out in this situation. My hats off to you guys getting out there and giving it a shot.

Ahhhh......the joys of a 'higher' elevation!

Good thing you guys erred on the side of being conservative. Would you say this is one of the more harrowing experiences you've had?

Jay, I wouldn't say 'harrowing' so much as frustrating. I've certainly had more scary survival experiences out there but this weather was really noteworthy. Really a memorable experience to watch these snow-devils rip across the mountainside and slam into you so hard you could barely stand. The sound of the wind, the battle with the tents and the energy it took to complete the round trip in these conditions is what I'll take from this one.

Amazing adventure - sounds like a story for that "Man vs Nature" cable TV show I've seen a few time - only you will need to start talking with an English (or is it Australian accent). Was there more snow out there than most winters ? I've heard many places are reaching 150 - 200% of their annual average snow...... glad you all were safe in the end.

Marc, you may think in hindsight that you shouldn't have turned back, but I've read enough newspaper stories this year about hikers or snowshoers whose bodies were finally found after days of being lost in a blizzard or avalanche. I'd hate to have to see another one...and then glance down the list of victims and recognize the name of one of the top photographers in the area. Discretion really is the better part of valor here, and I'm glad you'll live to shoot another day.

Those are the kind of conditions when you wish you had a little camera keeping warm and handy in a coat pocket while the "real" camera awaits less beastly weather.

Sounds like you had an invigorating "day hike" with full packs, Marc. Too bad you guys didn't find a flatter location with heavier snow so you could stabilize the Trango. I assume you had plenty of fuel to stay put if you needed to.

It's amazing the number of elements that many of us "cold weather types" can tolerate and keep our focus in, but the moment that wind enters the picture, suddenly everything becomes exponentially more difficult.

Wind of that sort is the piece of nature that I have the most difficult time embracing. The only good part about that wind is how warm and cozy the 20 mph winds feel when you've descended back down.

Sounds like a great story for Backpacker.

Thanks for that interesting and informative story, Marc. There was a lot of useful information in it for me. I'm especially curious about that Trango tent which I'm going to check out later.